As a user, would I put up with time wasting, irritating, leading and continuously interrupting commercials? Hell no! Fuck that Skype!
I'd rather go back to using smoke signals.
Good luck advertising to the universe and beyond. But not to me.

I've added #6 for your benefit.

I take it you don't watch any network television, as you would rather go back to cave painting.

I wouldn't pay to get rid of the ads either... I already pay for my cellphone... I can just use it. (It's ad-free.)

I use Skype now to talk to friends and family internationally... because it's free. We would all quickly adopt the next free thing if Skype started charging or putting interrupting ads in it. (I could accept non-audio ads in a separate window on the desktop app I suppose... but I'm nor sure how well that would work on a mobile device.)

From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...

I wouldn't pay to get rid of the ads either... I already pay for my cellphone... I can just use it. (It's ad-free.)

I use Skype now to talk to friends and family internationally... because it's free. We would all quickly adopt the next free thing if Skype started charging or putting interrupting ads in it. (I could accept non-audio ads in a separate window on the desktop app I suppose... but I'm nor sure how well that would work on a mobile device.)

So this is exactly why Skype is not profitable. They don't need users like you at all.

You want it to be free, without ads. That's fine. Then it won't be sustainable. I'd rather it be sustainable, and have a wider installed base, thank you.

Remember, this idea is not how to make KIngOfSomewhereHot happy. This idea is about how to make Skype profitable, and still provide a service that people will use.

Right now I don't use Skype. Why? My parents don't use Skype. My overseas friends don't use Skype. It's too much trouble to get people to install things. Maybe with Microsoft ownership, they can include it in the OS and make it better integrated. Still, Windows Live is already included in the OS, and my parents don't use that, either.

If Skype-to phone were free and ad-supported, I could call my parents for free, and they could immediately see the benefits of that, without having to change a single thing on their end. Then if they got annoyed by the ads, I could explain the Skype-to-Skype solution to them. They would be much more likely to install Skype (or start using a Microsoft pre-installed Skype) at that point. Win-win-win.

As for Skype-toSkype, a number of people would put up with five seconds of ads. FIVE SECONDS. The first one would be nothing, far less intrusive than any ad on television. The second (and last) one on a Skype-to-Skype call would be more intrusive, but five seconds is over quick, and then you could chat your day away.

I guess you've stopped going to the cinema because they play two minutes of ads before the film starts. They didn't used to do that. So you must have dropped them like a hot potato, and started torrenting instead, right?

Yep, if you want to pay, you can use your cell phone. As long as you're calling the US, rates should be pretty cheap. I can pay as low as US$0.02 per minute to call the US using certain services. There's no reason for me not to use my cell phone when I'm paying pennies. But if I'm calling Germany, that price goes up to US$0.15. Skype is, and would be, much cheaper than that, and there's always the ad-supported offer.

Good luck getting your friends to install new protocols all the time. All of your friends.

Remember, this idea is not how to make KIngOfSomewhereHot happy. This idea is about how to make Skype profitable, and still provide a service that people will use.

I understand that, and they're free to run their business however they please.

But I have to think that a bunch of people that use Skype, use it because it's free. I already have a "paid" service in my cellphone... so I'm hardly gonna pay twice for the same thing.

But you're right... Skype may not give a hoot what the millions of freeloaders do regarding Skype service... they're only interested in the folks who are willing to pay. (Unless they consider their ad-revenue ... which they sell based on total number of users.) ... So somewhere in there they'll find a happy medium and run the service that way.

From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that!" -...